


Habits

by ricekrispyjoints



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Ficlet, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 05:38:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21248330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ricekrispyjoints/pseuds/ricekrispyjoints
Summary: Based on the prompt: "It's always been you."Things between them have always been... complicated. But maybe the day is growing closer where that doesn't have to be the case anymore.





	Habits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Frenchibi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frenchibi/gifts).

> also posted on my tumblr ! 
> 
> for french, my dearest bitch, please accept my soft uwus 
> 
> this is my first fic in FMA so be gentle xD

Roy removed his reading glasses and sighed heavily, pushing away from his desk.

It’s late at night—hours after he told himself he would stay—and the only source of light comes from the small banker’s lamp on his desk.

His mind is sluggish from the hours of reading and analyzing and thinking. He rubs his eyes in the vain attempt to clear the bleariness.

It’s nights like this that make Roy long for something else.

He doesn’t have regrets, per se, but he can’t help but feel like he’s missing something in his life.

Like having a life outside of work.

That’s always been his problem, though, he supposes.

He doesn’t feel young anymore; not with everything that’s happened. He had so much energy, so much anger and drive, but now, in the aftermath of dismantling of a government he feels like he’s aged thirty years.

Given his new reading glasses, he almost believes he did.

“Go home, Sir.”

Roy startles at the voice, but there’s only one person who would be here this late.

“You’re one to talk,” he says, clearing his throat.

“I came back because I knew you were still here,” she says, voice softening.

“I have a phone.”

“You and I both know that if I had called, you would have assured me that you were leaving, and then stayed another hour or three.”

Riza steps more fully into the light, traces of circles under her eyes, but the same composure as always.

“That’s probably fair,” Roy laughs.

“Come on. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“Thought I was supposed to be going home?”

Riza arches an eyebrow. “I’ll make you the cup of tea at home.”

He’s surprised, to say the least, but he’s not going to risk saying anything that will make her retract the offer, so he tidies the papers on his desk, grabs his jacket and hat, and turns out the light.

The night air feels crisp and clean in his lungs, and the clack, clack, clack of their boots against the cobblestones is rhythmic and synchronized in a soothing way.

They walk closely but never touching, and Roy can’t help but wonder what would happen if he reached out, let their arms brush, took her hand…

_She’d probably break my fingers_, he thinks with a derisive snort.

“Something funny, Sir?” she asks.

“Just had a thought.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Roy laughs lightly, but doesn’t press it.

They arrive at his apartment shortly thereafter.

Riza has been here before, and she moves as naturally as if it were home toward the kitchen. She picks out two cups, fills the kettle, and lights the stove.

Roy removes his jacket slowly, placing it on the hall tree. He places his briefcase on a table and then walks slowly to the kitchen to join Riza.

“I’m making a tisane so it doesn’t keep you awake,” she says simply.

“I don’t have any tisanes.”

Riza slides a box toward him. It looks like it was just purchased. “Chamomile and linden.”

Wordlessly, Roy prepares the teas, and when the water boils, Riza pours two equal cups neatly, and they sit, holding their cups that are too hot to drink from just yet.

“Why did—” Roy starts.

“You have to—" Riza says at the same time. “Ah, go ahead.”

“No, please. You first.”

“You have to take better care of yourself,” Riza says.

Roy sighs. “But that’s what I have you for.”

She glares at him, though it lacks the usual intensity. “That’s not my job.”

“You’re right. It’s not. And yet here we are.”

“Bad habit, I suppose,” Riza says.

It is a bad habit, Roy supposes. She’s had to bail him out of trouble for years, to varying degrees. She’s kept watch over him through so much. Roy knows for a fact he would be dead if it weren’t for her.

He would also be more miserable than he is.

As professional as Riza insists on keeping things, Roy likes to believe there’s _slightly _more to their relationship than commanding officer and subordinate.

He hopes he’s not deluding himself.

They’ve spent what Roy would consider intimate evenings together: just the two of them, working silently across the room, the only noise coming from the shuffling of papers and the scratching of pens.

She’s always taken care of him, and Roy likes to think that, especially recently, he’s gotten better at returning the favor.

He brings her lunch every day except for Wednesday, when she has a standing lunch with a friend.

He leaves books he thinks she might enjoy on her desk.

He always makes sure to carry her favorite type of pen on him, since it’s the favorite of most of their coworkers and thus tends to get _misplaced_ (read: stolen).

Despite the upheaval in regimes, Roy remains her superior—her _direct _superior at that—and he knows that no matter her personal feelings for him, her sense of propriety would prevent her from ever even so much as admitting it.

And yet, here they are, in his kitchen as they’ve been many times. She’s come to his office, dragged him home, made him tea.

This is _not _a superior-subordinate relationship.

This is not her job.

So why…?

“How did we get here?” Roy asks, testing the waters.

“We walked, Sir,” Riza snarks.

He shoots an unimpressed look at her. “You know what I’m asking.”

“Maybe I don’t want to answer.” She takes a long sip of her tea.

_That _catches his interest. “Why not?”

“Don’t make me say it,” she says, her voice low and measured. 

“Humor me?”

She sets her teacup down, fixing him with a long stare. “You entrusted me, long ago, with watching your back.”

“I don’t think dragging me out of the office to make me calming tea is really part of ‘watching my back’.”

“Perhaps not in the sense you meant it, no,” she agrees. “But I chose to re-interpret it how I saw fit.”

“Which means?”

“There’s more than one way to watch over you,” she says simply.

“Things have changed quite a bit since I first asked you to watch my back.”

“All the more reason for me to adapt my actions.”

“Some might say that dragging me home for tisanes and to tuck me in at night goes beyond even an updated interpretation of your directive,” Roy says carefully.

She lifts her chin, defiant. “I’m dedicated to my work.”

“So you do this to your other colleagues as well?” Roy asks with a smirk.

“Of course not, none of the others need this much attention.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure, I saw Fuery trip _up _a hill yesterday, maybe he needs more help than I do.”

“You know it’s always been you,” Riza says, voice turning more serious. “And after everything we’ve been through, it will always _be _you.”

“Always been me… for what?”

“Everything, I suppose. Our situation is complicated, I know. And it always has been. Military hierarchy, life and death situations… but throughout it all, there’s always been you: at the center, at the forefront. How could I ever abandon that?”

“I’m not asking you to abandon it,” Roy rushes to say. “The opposite, actually.”

“You’re asking me for a commitment I can’t give you,” she says, and Roy doesn’t think he’s imagining the sadness in her voice.

“No, I… I understand.”

“Not yet, at least,” she says, trying to hide the small smile that tugs at the corner of her lips.

It sounds like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hey on [tumblr,](https://ricekrispyjoints.tumblr.com) if you're into that kind of thing !


End file.
